Thursday Morning in the Mist

I was able to speak with Sr. Mary, the Director of Nyumbani. She is delightfully Irish and very insightful. She cuts through many program language, personal thoughts and feelings and is able to articulate for me, what I am doing, why and how best to proceed. We talked about the Village, its issues and concerns and also the children there. She makes the long drive from Nairobi to the Village every couple of weeks. She leaves early - just like me! She was able, in just a few sentences, to affirm why I am at Nyumbani and remind me that I was called here, not simply as a backpacker volunteer, but as a mission, with gifts and talents to be used. I am ready to spend more months there now, after having my journey acknowledged in such a positive way. I am looking forward to getting back to the Village, the kids, the grandmothers, the staff.

I woke early today, hearing the children at the Children's Home getting ready for school and boarding the bus to take them to the local schools. Yesterday there was a Halloween party, some punch and treats and some costumes to celebrate. This morning is cold, foggy, rainy and the children are bundled up with hats, sweaters and sweatshirts. They don't do well in the cold and are usually in sweaters etc, to keep their chests covered and prevent respiratory issues.

Hoping to either go to Don Bosco or the Kibera Slums today. We shall see. Peace!

Childhood

I have been tutoring Benard, one of the first 14 year guys I met when I arrived at the Village. He is quiet, serious, stern looking until he smiles. He lives with his sister Lucy and brother (called Charles Darwin). I began tutoring him (and some of his friends) during my first week. We would gather at Ben's house, light the kerosene lamp and go over English, Social Studies and sometimes Science. Ben is so smart. He knows so much about so many things that my only real help has been with English. We are working to improve his English grammar, mechanics and composition. Because it was so difficult to meet in the dark, we moved the time earlier in the evening, most nights. This one particular night one of the English study books has us reading long stories and answering questions. The last two stories have been particularly difficult. Many have been stories or lessons about AIDS etc. but these last stories, stories. . . Oh man! The first we read with Benard and his sister present. It was about Kenyan girls being coaxed into the slave trade, female genital mutilation, rape etc. It was so difficult to read to them and with them. It is THEIR book, on THEIR level apparently. I asked them, "Do you know what I am reading about?" "Oh yes." they said. For the second story, Lucy left to cook dinner and I was left reading with Benard. I told Ben, "I am going to have a hard time reading this story with you." He looked at the first three sentences and looked at me and said, "I will be OK". The story was about coping with the death of a parent. It talked about trying to get over things in two weeks and trying to get back to normal. It said it was ok to cry with the remaining parent, ok to be afraid of the dark and said that it is good to assure friends that you are "ok". I cried as I read it with Benard and he teared up in a couple places. He lost both parents to AIDS, his father first and then his mother. Ben promises to tell me his whole story sometime but it is painful. He will soon go to his hometown, Kitui South in Mid November to take this big test and visit relatives. He says he is given money for the 2 hour bus trip but often the money is taken from him for the ride back to the village. He has chickens there he wants to see. Benard and I often go "monkey watching" together, although we seldom watch any monkeys. We talk. He is a great kid and is determined to do well on the November exam so as to get into a good secondary school. He will.

TIA! - THIS IS AFRICA!

Everything in Africa runs late. Everything takes longer than expected. If you are going to leave at 7, you'll leave at 10. If they said the distance is only 10K - it's at least 20. You may wait all day for the right tool, the right person, a driver, a bus. It took me hours to send some boxes to the states. It took forever to drop off a broken printer in Nairobi. All we needed was a receipt. It is agonizing when you first get here. But, you realize, TIA and we always have tomorrow, which will be much like today. Weddings start hours late, as do most services and events. We had a staff gathering scheduled for 3:00. People began arriving around 4:15! It will drive you nuts but it gets better and you eventually come to terms with the culture and the speed of life.

I had the opportunity of spending a day in Nairobi with George (Kenyan from the Village) and Maria, a young woman from Spain working on a business plan for the woodworking shop in the Village. We took a Matatu to downtown and ran some errands with George but we were able to see parts of the city that many tourists, especially white tourists, cannot see. We hopped Matatus here and there. They are not permitted to stop or the drivers are ticketed. You have to run along side and jump in the van. There were three of us trying to board so it was quite a sight. I still feel that the driver was playing games - "See if we can make the white guys run!" It was great fun actually. We saw more slums and poor people trying to sell what they had on the streets. Always the smells of burning trash and charcoal. When I first came to Africa, the feeling of despair and sadness filled my mind. There was always a sick feeling that made my head ache whenever I traveled around the town. So much pain, sadness, dirt and grime. But today was different. Although there was the same sad surroundings, being with Maria and George IN AFRICA! made me smile and feel happy to be alive, with them on this great day. We all shared the feelings. You have to meet George. He is hilarious. In his strong African accent he will look at me if I am staring or daydreaming and say things like "Ed, Ed, please come back. Hop on a plane and come back to Africa. Are you at IHM now or somewhere, come back to Kenya Ed and the Village and be with us. Ed, Ed. Are you ok?" Or he'll say "Ed, Ed, when will you return to the Village. It is not the same when you are not in the Village. Come, back and drink a Tuskers, and we'll have a goat, Ed!" George has big responsibilities, making the Village self-sustaining in the next 4 or 5 years. He is in charge of the main farms and the animals. Everything is organic and we picked up organic pesticides, some worm medicines for the goats and other various items around downtown Nairobi. A great day and a great lunch at another Africa restaurant.

Today I visited a Safari company located next door to the Children's Home in Karen, where I am staying. It is my hope to go with George or one of the locals to Masai Mara and Nakuru on a short safari in mid-December. I will be up for another break then.

I miss the kids at the Village. There are plenty of young kids here at the orphanage but it is the Village I have fallen in love with and I told the kids I would return in a few days. I printed out some of their pictures from my camera. They are fascinated by photos, especially of themselves. Photos (and mirrors for that matter) are not usually found at the Village.

Tomorrow we may head to the Don Bosco Vocational School to check on their woodworking shop and school. The Village has some great machinery, old models but very big and good machines. Maria is developing a plan for the shop and info at Don Bosco will help. I also hope to get with Sr. Little and head into Kibera Slums before I go back to the Village sometime this weekend.

That's about it for now. Life in Africa is very good. It is by no means perfect and I still have the same frustrations, disappointments and hurts I experience at home but . . . hey (TIA!) THIS IS AFRICA and I want to concentrate on the great gift this trip is for me. I continue to be SO GRATEFUL.

Yelling "Fire" in a Crowded Village

One of the difficulties in the Village, which I had not thought about, is the possibility of a fire. We were at dinner - about 8:00 pm when we heard a terrible scream from a woman in the Village. The local Kenyans at our table ran out of the house. We didn't know if there was danger, someone in hysterics, something else? We quickly realized there was a fire in one of the nearby houses. The screams were a warning, "Fire, everyone come!" The fire was at the home of the woman who cooks for us each night. The added problem was that there was no water to put out the fire. The faucets which are located some yards from the houses were dry and turned off due to conservation. We grabbed out drinking water, 10 liter bottles and tried to fill our "bathing" bowls with water from a holding tank but that was low and slow to fill. Eventually the fire, which was caused by a candle on some bedding was extinguished. I will never forget to the screams for help. Everyone in the Village heard them, even the students who were studying in the school across the Village. It was amazing and frightening.

Sunday Evening

Had a great Sunday. Met Pascal, the tech guy from the Children's Home here in Nairobi. We took a Matatu (crowded van!) to downtown and purchased a printer for the library and some computer supplies. We also spent about an hour and a half uploading nearly 100 pics of the Village to my Flickr site - see below or to the right for address. Pascal took me to a traditional African restaurant for lunch - very good. Then it was back on a bus for the trip back home to the Children's Home in Karen.

I also got my hair cut at the BP station! 200 Shillings (less than $3.00) for a smart looking haircut. The barber was Kamba so I got to use my Kamba Language on him. Very cool.

Tomorrow - more relaxing and checking things off my list. I want to check out a Safari for my next break in a couple months. I also want to try to hook up a Blackberry that was given to me. I may be able to email from the village via cell signal. We shall see and it depends on the price. I will also look to update the blog with more journal entries. G'Night!

Picture Site

Some Pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12575884@N05/

I hope you can view them. ED

"The Poor Don't Know How To Lose"

The Dreams of Youth

Hindus and Buddhists are way ahead of us Westerners in terms of what their young people idealize. They’re led to idealize holiness, inner freedom, inner truth, rather than simply outer success. Our drive for outer success has given us tremendous advantages in terms of the scientific and industrial revolutions, but Asia and Africa are more able to triumph over the inner world. Wisdom is still idealized as the value that binds them together.

During my travels I was glad to see, in Africa especially, the almost universal puberty rites and initiation rites still in place. Basically they are intense, three-month “CCD programs” that work. The young people are taken apart by the wise men or women of the tribe and taught what wisdom is: “This is what holds us together as a people. This is what we stand for, this is who we are, these are our values.” And when those young men and women return from those kind of groupings, they know who they are.

In our culture, we’re forever searching for our values, what we want to believe in, what we might want to commit ourselves to. Adolescence, the time of open options, now lasts until age thirty-two in the West! In some cultures, adolescence really ends as early as sixteen and seventeen. You often see that in the self-assurance of young people who find their ground and meaning much earlier.

I suspect we actually are stunted and paralyzed by having too many options. We are no longer the developed world; we are the overdeveloped world.

from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction - Richard Rohr

African Lessons

(Written by Richard Rohr in Africa) The missionaries here love to talk about their peoples. At every meal, I inquire about the ways of the different cultures: the hard-working Kikuyu, the fascinating Masai, the exotic and primitive tribes of Turkana and others. The more I travel, the more it becomes evident that it is culture what finally and firmly forms our attitudes—so deeply that we don’t recognize them as chosen attitudes. It is an emotional seeing that is not easily challenged or overcome. How will God ever make unity out of our extraordinary diversity, especially when each culture is so committed to its own pair of glasses? My best memory from this trip to Africa is the young man who gave me two of his carvings in exchange for my watch. I got the bargain: he gave me himself, his art, and took away a tyrant from my wrist. All I really gave him was my address, since he wanted to write. The poor don’t know how to lose.

from St. Anthony Messenger, “African Journal” Richard Rohr

A Day in the Life of a Student in Kitui

At the Village there is a school sponsored by the Hotcourses Foundation in the UK and the Honorable Jeremy Hunt - a member of Parliament. It serves children of various ages from preschool (3yrs) to Standard 7 (about 13yrs). School is open six days and nights a week and the schedule goes something like this. The Village wakes at sunrise (6 a.m.) You can hear the children as they begin to rise in the 26 houses scattered around the village. Fires are lit in the early morning darkness. Everyone brushes their teeth outside, no sinks inside! By 6:40, students are gathering a handful of firewood to carry to school, maybe a half mile or mile away. This wood is used for the 10:00 cooking of porridge and lunch foods (beans and rice) on a fire in the back of school. The students come to school and one of the older students unlocks the many classroom doors. Each room is separate and has an outside door, library included. The students pull all the desks out of the room and begin to sweep and wash the floors each morning. Overnight the high winds carry dust and dirt into the classrooms and library. Each student has planted trees (saplings) around the school so they are watered ever morning when the water is on. I arrive at 6:50 to open the library for computers. At 7:45 or so, a teacher arrives, gathers the students and they all run laps. First the small children, then the older ones. There is an assembly and singing, dancing, a scripture reading outside, and the raising of the Kenyan flag. Announcements etc. follow. Various classes begin until 10:00 when porridge is served. Lunch is at 1:00 and clubs and games, studyhall etc. at 3:15 until sometime after 4:00. Then the children walk home. Even the 3 year olds are on their own to get home, sometimes assisted by older students but not necessarily. Once home, the students get into old clothes and begin washing their uniforms in the outside troughs and cleaning their shoes. The wet clothes are hung on bushes and fences to dry for the next morning. Then the students cook dinner. The grandmother is there to oversee and sometimes cook but it is usually the older children who cook. By 7:00, the older students are back at school in the two classrooms lit by solar light. They move desks from other classrooms and jam into the two. There they study independently and go over work from the day. This is called preps and happens six nights a week from 7-9. A guard escorts the students back to their homes in the dark night.

The students are very motivated to do well and study quite a lot on their own. The goal is secondary school, which for these students, is boarding school. More later - and hopefully pictures.

Quick Update

I am back from the Village in Kitui. After a month and a half, volunteers are given the opportunity to return to Karen (Nairobi) for a little R & R. A hot shower, good food, soft bed - sounds great. I will be here for about a week depending on when there is a truck going back to Kitui. For the next few days I have a small agenda: read a good book, relax, secure funding for a couple of projects, write thank you notes (emails) and update the blog with some pictures on Flickr. I am hoping to get to a faster Internet connection in downtown Nairobi soon to update pics. Here is a little update:

The library computers are humming along thanks to your donations for the solar unit that is now installed. What a great thing! The students are so excited. They get to school at about 6:45 and wait for me to open the door. I have one grade each morning from 6:50 - 8:15. Students have a break to run some time in between. Everyone runs laps in the morning for exercise and then back to class. There is a pile of shows left in the dirt and they take off in traditional, beautiful Kenyan strides. I have classes in the morning and then pick up the other grades from 3:00 - 4:00. I have also been teaching some English, some Math and had an opportunity to play guitar for some. I continue to tutor Benard (14 yrs) and some others in the evenings. I was able to spend some days working in the shamba, or field, but now spend a great deal of time at school. There are three projects I am working on and attempting to fund.

1.) Baskets - made by the grandmothers to support the orphans in their houses. I'll be shipping 120 baskets to IHM for sale. Thank you!

2.) Solar in the Clinic and Administration Building - With the coming of more children, some who are positive for HIV, comes the needs for refrigeration of medications. I am hoping to equip the building with power for lights and refrigeration ASAP.

3.) Harvesting rain water - I am hoping to make the Guest House, my home, a model for the collection of rain water. It rained the night before last and we believe it is the beginning of the rainy season. The water in the Village is undrinkable for white guys like me. It is high in saline and fluoride. It is also not the best for watering crops. We need to purchase and install gutters, downspouts and a holding tank on each of the 26 houses. The Guest House will be the first.

So - those are my projects and I hope to complete some groundwork here in Nairbobi before I return to the Village.

I'll write much more very soon. I have so much in my head and heart. I want to share it with you - just not today. Today I rest and sleep and thank God for the first 6 weeks in Africa and for you. Peace.

To come:

The rain, the moon, the sunsets, Benard, the goat who gave his life, the fire, the coffin, volunteers from Spain, Australia and Chicago, impromptu dancing and drumming, insects,snakes, etc. Trust me - it is all good.

More pics and return to the Village today

Here are some pics of my room, the school children, a soccer match in the dust bowl, more pics of my room at the guest house, making chipati, etc. Hopefully more at some point. We hear that transport back to the Village and Kitui will be here for us around 2:30 today - so this is probably it for a while. May be able to come back to Karen/Nairobi for some R and R in a couple of weeks. Peace - ED

Friends of Nyumbani Website

Here is another Nyumbani Website which features Nyumbani Village Computer Learning Center. Click on the picture and more pictures will follow. www.friendsofnyumbani.org

Sunday

And so it is Sunday, and I am looking for faith - at least the size of a mustard seed. Who does not struggle with meaning, matters of faith, relationships, disparities in life? There are times when nothing makes much sense and I am left with no understanding about why life works as it does, or the fairness of it all. The one constant that seems to remain though, is Love. Love makes sense, fills the voids, conquers all. No wonder Jesus takes so much time in describing it. I am trusting that Love, which I can feel, desire, long for and try to give away - is really a trust, desire and longing for the Divine. If God is Love, (which I am convinced God is) - then my search for God is really a search for Love and a search for the flow of that love between human beings and God. I have found it here in Kenya, but I also know that I found it back where I began.

Life and Death in Nairobi

I am still in Nairobi, finishing up purchases for the solar panels for the library and waiting for transport back to the Village at Kitui. This is my first visit back to KAREN, the town outside Nairobi and home of the Children's Home of Nyumbani. It is the first trip back since Ken (Kennedy) died a couple weeks ago. Ken was 12 years old. His parents died of AIDS and he was left with an uncle. The uncle abandoned him at a hospital, since he could not care for Ken who was malnourished and HIV positive. Ken came to Nyumbani about a year ago an struggled with eating issues as well as HIV. If he didn't eat, the ARV drugs that could save his life would not work and would poison him. He had good weeks and bad weeks and finally he died in the arms of his "mum" the caregiver from the cottage, weighing about 20 pounds. There was no feeding machine available, only a tube and syringe to get nourishment to him. Two electric feeding machines have been donated and will arrive at some time from the states - too late for Ken but will save others. Ken asked to be taken to the cottage to be with his friends but told mum that he was not going to make it and he died as she carried him to his friends. He was buried not far from the orphanage - one of millions of orphans and those infected with this disease. Many of the children here have suffered through illnesses related to AIDS - TB, malaria, meningitis, pneumonia.

We were driving Friday to downtown Nairobi to purchase the solar panels when traffic slowed (not unusual). There in the middle of the street was a young man, dead from some type of head trauma. He died alone in the street, no one near him. No one stopped, no cars, no police. It happens all the time in Nairobi, a city known for its violence and death. I will never get over it or understand it. Ken died with love, respect, prayers in the arms of those who had come to love him. Millions die here with no one - in the streets, in the slums, unknown only to their creator. I remain grateful to work in the remote areas, free from such violence and numbness. Sometimes one can only say a prayer and go on.

From my journal

The Mornings
I wake with the crowing of the roosters at about 5:30. My routine has been to stand at my little window that looks out on the rising sun and praying three prayers: The Daily Office from a book given to me by my Irish friend, a prayer to Divine Providence from the CDP sisters and finally a special prayer I wrote to unite me with my friends. When I rise, they are going to sleep. We pray the same daily/nightly prayer but on different continents.
I open the door to my little house and find Syokwaa starting the fire for the morning tea and breakfast. All the food is cooked on a fire started outside each day. Sometimes the open fire is built in the "kitchen" and so the house is always smoky. Every house has a little fire built outside and they glow each night. Beans and rice are always cooking somewhere. The day also begins with a walk to the water. There is a well dug and lines run to spickets throughout the village but often, more times than not, the generator for the pump is not working or turned off to conserve water in the arid land. I walk, like all the other villagers, to get water for washing or a morning "shower". My room has a little side room, or latrine with a hole in the concrete floor. Once you use the bathroom, you sprinkle a cup of ashes (from last nights fire) over it to keep down the smell and the insects. There is also a little space to shower – which is a bucket of water over your head – very cold in the morning, Sometimes I place a bucket of water in the hot sun and have a warmer shower after work. You get use to it all – the shower and the latrine and the bugs. Water is a major issue – finding it, carrying it, drinking it. I drink from big 10 liter bottles of clean water, purchased in Kitui (about and hour and a half away by truck) although I have been drinking some of the local water if it is boiled. It is heavy in saline and fluoride.
Food
Food is a variation on a theme. Residents of the Village receive shipments of bags of rice, corn (Maize) and beans. Lunch and dinner are some combination of these. You've seen the big bags from the WFP – World Food Program. At times there is some meat. A cow broke it's leg last week and the village had some meat. It won't keep long – no refrigeration, Ugali is made from maize flour – stiffer than mashed potatoes and not as flavorful. Scuma is the local vegetable grown everywhere, It is not my favorite. Chapati is a flat bread fried in a hot skillet with a few of the meals. Drink is always water. Morning is either bread and butter, cold sweet potatoes but sometimes little cakes or mondazis.

My Work
I have been working at a library space shelving 32 cases of donated books from the U.S. I have divided into Preschool, Lower Primary, Upper Primary and Secondary. There can be no check out, maybe eventually, but the books would never return or return in poor shape. The library has a number of issues, the biggest being the dirt and dust that gets blown in every night. Everything gets a layer of dirt nightly. I purchased some heavy material from the town of Kitui, about an hour away. I sewed, with the help of Agnes, some panels that fit over each shelving unit. The sewing machine is one of about ten here, all pedal run. They make the students' school uniforms here – a smart mint green shirt and light green plaid shorts and jumpers. Eventually I learned the rhythm of the sewing machine pedals. Therr were also ten laptops which were donated and loaded with educational software. The computer issue is the lack of electricity. We are hoping to purchase solar panels – with the help of some donated funds! and therefor be able to light the room at night and power the laptops. The computers run Edubuntu – a software unfamiliar to me but is a version of Lynux as opposed to Windows. We will need to schedule classes for computer use and use of the library books. It is difficult because it "doesn't fit into the national curriculum.
Kamba
The language is a bit of a challenge. IO know just a bit of Swahili – as do some of the locals and many children, but the language spoken here is Kamba, the tribal language of this area and group. I am learning slowly with the help of the staff but especially from the children, They are eager to help me and laugh at my mistakes. Some greetings like "wamukaata", "waja" "uvawaku" are all greetings of a sort and used a lot. Others are much more difficult and the inflection changes everything. Mazungu is the word heard most often around me - "White Guy". I do stick out a little. There are only two of us anywhere near here. The kids stroke my hands because they are soft and pull the hairs on my arms and stroke my beard. All novelties.
Weather – Hot and no chance of rain tonight
The weather is hot and dry – similar to Vegas maybe in the days, quickly cool at night. By noon or 1:00 it is pretty intense. I have no clue how hot it is, no weather report or thermometer. There is almost always a breeze, stirring up the dirt! Most of the time the sky looks like the opening of a Simpson episode or a Windows Screen saver – bright blue with white fluffy clouds. Oh the nights! I have seen a huge full moon night but also the moonless nights where the stars take your breath away. You can see the Milky Way clearly. The only lights you can see are the flicker of fires built next to each of the 25 little houses for cooking. Currently there are about 185 children and 25 grandparents or caregivers. The oldest is 96. Everyone sings and dances – especially at church services and at school. The boys are always dancing and singing and hanging all over each other. Any friends walk hand in hand, arm and arm, no matter if they are boys or girls. It is interesting and catches you eye at first until you get used to the custom. There is never any feelings of being self conscious with physical affection.

Kitui
The trip to Kitui was long in coming. Kitui Town is about an hour (depending on the roads) form the village. It is the largest town anywhere close to the Village. It is only there where we can get supplies like bottled water, PB and J, etc, There are also two old computers in the town but I didn't have time to wait for one or wait for the power to come on. The manager of the village drove to Kitui to get an important email, only to find that the power had gone out. a wasted day's trip. When people hear there is a truck going to Kitui, everyone wants to get on board. we took a flatbed truck in order to pick up some raw wood etc. for a building project. The roads are crap – terrible and the drivers must maneuver like driving in a mine field. All the wood will need to be planed and cut, and dried before use. There is also an ATM, although my friend had his card taken by the machine. We wnt to lunch at a "nice" restaurant – beef chips and "fries" for four people cost about $8.00 US. Tasty after rice and beans and we had a Coke! There is a truck sent to pick us up along with the supplies. I ride in the back of the truck with about eight other locals. I get the points and stares – Mazungu. We stop at a service station and pick up more passengers. By this time I am crowded – sitting on a wooden bench, trying to keep my hat on and my back in alignment. Did I say the roads are crap? We ride for about an hour, headed home until we come to the junction in the road that we turn off for the 30 minute ride on dirt. We stop and squeeze six more people on the truck. A old woman, in her eighties cannot climb onto the truck. She hands me her live chicken, feet tied to hold for her. I can't refuse . Flapping wings and biting at me I hold the chicken she will no doubt kill for dinner tonight. It was quite a ride.

Nairobi for the Weekend

I have some postings on a USB drive I am hoping to load on the blog sometime in the next day or so - if all goes well and I can get access. I also hope to upload some pics.

I came to Nairobi yesterday to purchase solar panels for a library project I am working on in the Village of Kitui, about 3 and a half hours from Nairobi. I am also now the Volunteer Coordinator for the Village and am meeting three new volunteers to give them a brief orientation on the Guest House, Kamba tribe, and life in Nyumbani Village. They are from New Guinea, Australia and the US. Know that things are going well - very different with no electricity, plumbing, good water but I am thoroughly enjoying the work and the people. I hope to load part of my journal soon.

I head back to Kitui Sunday night. More to follow!